Homemade pullup bar for the Powertec P-PR Power Rack

Pull-ups are probably the best back exercise - period! Primary muscles used are the lats, with biceps, forearms shoulders and even a little bit of the chest involved as well.

There's this great debate on some forums as to whether the pull-up handles on the Powertec P-PR Power Rack are ergonomically correct:

You can see what I use the existing handles for.

After researching this, I'm finding that the bar and the angle of your grip are very important.

You should use a straight bar and not a bar that is angled at the ends. Just because the bar is bent on the ends does not mean you should grab it there. Too wide of a grip increases stress on the fragile shoulder joint and also limits range of motion of the lat muscles.

Your grip on the bar should be only 6 to 8 inches wider than your shoulders. The wider the grip the less overload the lat muscles will get.

After reading the above paragraphs, I'm now wondering if doing pull-ups and pull downs with a wide grip because of an angled bar was the reason for my strained rotator cuff injury and not the bench-press like I thought.